PLC Day 4 June 17

Well, I was one of Sandy’s colleagues left on the patio at Lloyd's next to the hotel on Day 3, enjoying the wonderful evening sunshine, and the company of our Alaskan and Norwegian PLCers, joined later by several other colloquy participants. Little did I understand when I signed up to blog, that Thursday would be one of the most intense days, followed by the banquet and the outcry auction. I therefore apologize that this report is undoubetedly arriving AFTER the report for Day 5, but it simply couldn’t be helped… I had a lot to cover!

Day 4 (Thursday in Bremerhaven) began with Session 6: Preserving and Distributing Polar Research – Polar Libraries Ahead, moderated by Sandy Campbell of the University of Alberta Library. The first presentation was by Ross Goodwin of the ASTIS Bibliography, Arctic Institute of North America at the University of Calgary, who provided an account of the concept, design, development, current status and ongoing plans for the IPY 2007-2008 database. The database, developed as a consortium model using existing systems, is unique in that it collects social data and gray literature, allows for geographic as well as inter-disciplinary searching, is useful to a broad audience, and that it contributes records to ongoing databases at the same time as it builds the IPY 2007-2008 database. It is now at 4,000 records and counting. Some of the challenges are in capturing the data, but the most pressing issue is the sale of NISC to EBSCO publishing, which means that IPYPD is no longer a subset of AAR, even though it was built to use the infrastructure. The work on IPYPD has really just begun, the records will continue to be collected by CRBP, ASTIS, and SPRI but a long-term solution to the NISC situation must be found. A request was made for us all to add a link to the IPYPD to our websites to inform networks of its existence.

Our second speaker was Gloria Hicks of the National Snow and Ice Data Centre at the University of Boulder, Colorado, who talked about how e-tools and communciations infrastructures are being used for collaboration in key areas of science. In the same way, libraries are using e-tools to disseminate information and for communciation between librarians and users; websites are adapting e-strategies for distributing information through web streaming, RSS feeds, podcasts; social network fora, blogs, wikis, and chat applications are being used for science-based dialogues; and finally science is finding ways of using mobile applications. Of examples described was the ‘Science on a Sphere’ 3d program of NOAA (see http://sos.noaa.gov/).

Session 7, Giving (Open) Access to Research Data was moderated by Marcel Brannemann of the Alfred Wegener Institute and focused on a culture shift, whereby the scientific community is beginning to embrace open access, having been pushed to share ever more and various forms of materials (such as raw data). First up in this session as Hannes Grobe of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Beremerhaven who provided a overview of the birth and development of the PANGAEA Data Library for the Earth System—a georeferenced data library that offers a brilliant way to handle metadata as supplemental data to publications. From the view of the datacenter, data must be electronic (readable) to be useful and available. Next was a presentation by Jan Brase of the Technische Informationsbibliothek in Hannover,Germany who described DataCite--an international consortium for data citation. He described library catalogues as agents of global cooperation with local representation.

Our morning was rounded out with a Panel Discussion on the possible roles for the future library in digital curation, and how archives, libraries and data centres can interact more efficiently. The panel moderator was David Walton of the British Antarctic Survey and panelists included Heather Lane of the Scott Polar Research Institute, Shelly Sommer of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, Jan Brasse of the Technische Informationshbibliotek; and Hans Pfeiffenberger of the Alfred Wagener Institute. Panelists talked about differing views of library directors, library staff and researchers, the role of librarians in data management, how that role has evolved over the last 10-20 years, the challenges to accessing information and training needed for these evolving roles, the need for librarians to be invited to share in the planning stages of designing data management structures and systems and how their work should be called upon to inform the development of sharing policies. A lively open discussion ensued—a good deal of it focussed on whether the title ‘librarian’ should be changed to something more descriptive, or more inclusive of these new roles where they exist. Several conclusions were drawn; amongst them, the need to promote the skills and position of the Librarian to provide competencies and training in areas other than those conventionally attributed to them. Also discussed was the growing concept of ‘embedded librarians’ being a required part of the research process (e.g., in the medical sciences). There is a need to design and develop templates for data management and sharing, and various professionals and users need to be at the table to discuss needs and information required by various stakeholders, and to find a viable way to organize the data to make management as efficient and effective as possible. We need to be able to articulate various rules of access for e.g., the medical sciences (privacy standards) vs. social sciences (ethical standards) vs. biological sciences (data sharing) vs. applied sciences (patents protection) to form cohesive templates that will work across disciplines, institutions, jurisdiction (a monumental task!). Contraints, as always are funding, governance mechanisms, trans-national perspectives and differences, disciplinary restraints, and international rules. The most important conclusion was that the term Librarian is still appropriate--that people know what a librarian is, even if they might not know everything that a librarian does, and so we should… “Keep to the Brand”!

We returned after lunch to Session 8 which dealt with e-publications availability and access. This third session was moderated by Sandy Campbell.

The first talk was given by Sharon Tahirkheli of the American Geological Institute in Alexandria who addressed the impact of changes in the publishing industry on the Cold Regions Bibliography Project (CRBP), exploring whether new technologies and publishing norms such as electronic journals and e-books, digital repositories have made producing bibliographies more efficient or if the cost and effort expended adapting to the changing environments made it at all worthwhile. The bottom line is that while some efficiencies have been realized in some areas (staff time), they have been taken up in others (programming).

Next, new colloquy member Yoriko Hayakawa of the National Institute for Polar Research (NIPR) in Tokyo, Japan introduced us to the journals and reports produced by NIPR since 1957. The institute has moved to open access for all journals since 2003. Yoriko also spoke of the launch of ‘Polar Science; and a new special issue of MERGE, the new library, and the expedition reports collection, and provided a quick demo on how to access these materials.

The last talk in session 8 was dedicated to improving access to gray literature in polar libraries by Daria Carle of the University of Alaska Anchorage. The presentation was based on a comparative study of gray literature collections at the libraries of the Austalian Antarctic Division (AAD) in Tasmania, Australia, and the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) in Cambridge. The duplication expected in the two collections was surprising low (less than 6%). The project also looked at using RefWorks and RefShare to link the bibliographies to increase access. A full report of the study is available at http://www.consortialibrary.org/blogs/dcarle/sabbatical

After coffee was the PLC Business Meeting, the whole which will be reported in an upcoming issue of the Bulletin. Following the usual business of approving the minutes and the treasurer’s report, we took a few minutes to remember Geraldine (Nita) Cooke who passed away on 25 May 2010. As a founding member of the Northern Libraries Colloquy, Nita contributed a great deal to the PLC through the 1970s and 80s, and even into her retirement in the 1990s. She last attended the PLC meeting in Ottawa in 2004.
The business meeting then resumed with the election of officers; a regular member needs to be elected by e-ballot in the coming months. Sandy Campbell was recognized and thanked for her work over this term as Secretary to the Committee.
A good discussion was held on the impact of the sale of NISC to EBSCO (outlined by Ross Goodwin and Sharon Tahirkheli, respectively, in their presentations earlier in the day), and whether there was potential for action that PlC can take in this regard. It was decided that for the time being, the project team of the IPYPD would continue to try to work with EBSCO at finding a suitable solution.
Finally, PLC was presented with a proposal for an EU Arctic Information Centre or AIC network at the Arctic Centre of the Univerity of Lapland in Rovaniemi, with a request for support. The executive committee of PLC has considered the proposal, and advised the membership that, under the current structure and mandate, PLC cannot take part directly in the activities of this proposed EU Network (it cannot, and does not have the means to administer funding or any support or resources that might be provided for involvement in such a proposed), and therefore could not be a part of the bid. A member of the PLC can be funded as a consultant in the project, and so it would be more appropriate that AIC approach individual libraries (they have approached some). The discussion continued on ways the PLC might interact with and/or participate in the work of AIC in the future. Based on the above, a letter of response will be drafted and presented to the initiators of the proposal.
The next PLC 2012 will be in Boulder Colorado! (dates TBA).
Members are asked to send in vignettes, sound bites, re. PLC 2010 and contribute your news and articles for the PLC Bulletin!

The afternoon session closed at 5:30, which gave us a short break before dinner at 7 p.m. in the Captain’s lounge of the Sail City Hotel (sometimes referred to locally as ‘little Dubai’!). As we exited the elevator on the 19th floor, we were provided a glass of sparkling wine to enjoy while checking out the outstanding 360o view of Bremerhaven with the excellent sound of the Carlos Montoya jazz band from Bremen as a backdrop. A wonderful dinner (with a wide choice of salads, fish, pork, vegetable dishes, and desert) was shared and the jazz band resumed.

The outcry auction led by auctioneer par excellence David Walton was once again a highlight of the evening. Eight items reserved for the event were from all regions represented by participants in the 23rd colloquy, and all great prizes indeed: hand-painted hankerchiefs, a map umbrella with a polar projection, a litre of maple syrup, a Sami necklace made of silver, a handpainted silk tie, and an Alaskan ulu, which apparently is much more affordable than a shower curtain — just ask Fred Presteng who contributed the highest price to the purchase of the Ulu. The great news is that the silent raised enough to support 3 participants at the next colloquy!
Day 4 Correspondent,
Elaine Maloney